If you are a Small Business customer, find additional troubleshooting and learning resources at the Support for Small Business site.

The following information has changed or has become
available after the ReadmeSQL2005.htm file for SQL Server 2005 was published.

SQL Server 2005 Setup fails on a computer that is running Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 or a later version Windows Server 2003 if the DCOM Server Process Launcher service is not started

You install SQL Server 2005 on Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1) or a later version of Windows Server 2003. If the DCOM Server Process Launcher service (DCOMLAUNCH) is not started, you receive an error message that resembles the following:

A new installation of SQL Server 2005 fails if the collation is case sensitive and the computer name contains lowercase letters or special characters. To resolve this issue, rename the computer with only uppercase letters. Upgrade installations of SQL Server 2005 should not be affected by this issue.

SQL Server passwords are now case-sensitive

In SQL Server 2005, passwords are tied to the operating system.
With this change, SQL Server 2005 login passwords are now case-sensitive.

You may receive an error message in the Error and Usage Reporting dialog box on 64-bit computers

If you are running SQL Server 2005 in a 64-bit environment, you
may receive an error message if you try to change settings on the
Advanced Properties tab of the Error and Usage
Reporting dialog box. You receive this error message when the
Error Report Location field for Other (x86)
components is blank. We recommend that you provide a valid folder name on the
local drive in the Error Report Location field. This folder
may be the same folder as the folder that you specify for the
Other component.

You may receive a blank error message in SQL Server Management Studio

You may upgrade a Microsoft Windows 2000-based computer that is
running SQL Server 2005 to Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1).
When you do this, you may receive a blank error message in SQL Server
Management Studio.

To resolve this issue, repair the Microsoft .NET
Framework after you upgrade the operating system. To do this, follow these
steps:

In Control Panel, open Add or Remove Programs.

Click Microsoft .NET Framework
2.0.

Click Change/Remove.

Click Repair, and then click
Next.

When the repair is completed, restart the computer if you
are prompted to do this.

How to use the DBCS code page

If the operating system is configured to use the double-byte
character set (DBCS) code page, select UNICODE encoding instead of ANSI
encoding for the output file in the Generate SQL Server Scripts Wizard.

The Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine Service Pack 4 (MSDE
SP4) is based on Microsoft SQL Server 7.0. When you try to upgrade MSDE SP4 to
SQL Server 2005 Express Edition, you receive an error message for the Backward
Compatibility component during setup. Additionally, an error message is written
to the setup log file. This error message states that the SQLServer2005_BC.msi
file does not exist in the Setup folder for SQL Server Express
Edition.

To complete SQL Server Express Edition Setup, you must run
SQL Server Express Edition Setup in repair mode. For more information, see the
"How to: Install SQL Server 2005 from the Command Prompt" topic in SQL Server
2005 Books Online.

For more information about SQL Server 2005 Books
Online, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

'In the SQL Server 2005 Setup program, garbage characters such as
"\\" appear in the text of the SQL Server Component Update
dialog box when the following conditions occur in the following order:

You install some localized versions of SQL Server
components.

You do not change any settings, and you install the
components again.

This behavior occurs in the following components:

Analysis service

Management and Monitor tools

Required permissions for full-text search in a clustered environment are changed

Changes have been made to the "Section 4.1.6 Lowering privileges
for Full-Text Search" topic in the readme file. The restriction that requires
special permissions for the Microsoft Full-Text Engine for SQL Server
(MSFTESQL) service account in a clustered environment has been removed. In a
clustered environment, the MSFTESQL service account no longer requires local
Administrator permissions.

Note As a best practice, we recommend that you set the MSFTESQL
service to run under a low-privileged account.

How to copy SQL Server 2005 to a network share and then run the Setup program from the copy location

If you download SQL Server 2005 from the Microsoft Developer
Network (MSDN) Web site, the product is split between the following two
downloads:

SQL Server 2005 - Developer Edition - Servers

SQL Server 2005 - Developer Edition - Tools

To set up SQL Server 2005, you must download the Servers and
Tools files to folders that are named "Servers" and "Tools." Otherwise, the
Setup program fails when you install tools components and SQL Server Books
Online. Additionally, the following error message is written to the Setup
program Core.log file:

You cannot install SQL Server 2005 if you have less than 1.6 GB
of available disk space on the system drive. Most of this space is used only
for a short time. After you run the Setup program, SQL Server 2005 requires 700
megabytes (MB) of disk space.

Unique nonclustered indexes cannot be created online

In the final release version of SQL Server 2005, unique
nonclustered indexes cannot be created online. This behavior only affects the
following statements:

CREATE UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED INDEX

CREATE UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED INDEX WITH
DROP_EXISTING

ALTER TABLE ADD CONSTRAINT PRIMARY KEY NONCLUSTERED

ALTER TABLE ADD CONSTRAINT UNIQUE NONCLUSTERED

For more information, see section 4.1.23 in the SQL Server 2005
readme file. For more information about supported online index operations, see
SQL Server 2005 Books Online.

You may receive an error message if you use a ROLAP query

If you use a ROLAP query in which the condition is on a
parent/child dimension that uses RootMemberIf=ParentIsMissing, you may receive
the following error message:

Unable to display cell
properties

The Setup program fails when you install SQL Server Analysis Services or Database Engine during an upgrade

The SQL Server 2005 Setup program does not collect shared drive
information when you upgrade SQL Server. This behavior may cause the Setup
program to fail during an upgrade if any one of the following conditions is
true:

You add SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services to an instance of
the Database Engine.

You add the Database Engine to an instance of SQL Server
2005 Analysis Services.

You upgrade the Database Engine and you install a new
instance of SQL Server Analysis Services at the same time.

To work around this issue, run the Setup program at a command
prompt. If you are installing SQL Server 2005 Analysis Services, set the
INSTALLASDATADIR parameter to the same shared drive on which Database Engine
data files are located. If you are installing the Database Engine, set the
INSTALLSQLDATADIR parameter to the same shared drive on which Analysis Services
data files are located.

For example, use the following syntax to
specify the same path for the Database Engine data files as for the Analysis
Services data files.

Note You must supply information that is specific to your
installation.

You may receive an error message when you use ROLAP

You use ROLAP, and your cube uses tables from multiple data
sources. When you try to browse a cube, you may receive one of the following
error messages:

Error message 1

OLE DB error: OLE DB or ODBC error: SQL
Server blocked access to STATEMENT 'OpenRowset/OpenDatasource' of component 'Ad
Hoc Distributed Queries' because this component is turned off as part of the
security configuration for this server. A system administrator can enable
the use of 'Ad Hoc Distributed Queries' by using sp_configure. For more
information about enabling 'Ad Hoc Distributed Queries', see "Surface Area
Configuration" in SQL Server Books Online. ; 42000.

Error message 2

OLE DB error: OLE DB or ODBC
error

This issue occurs because SQL Server 2005 only gives in-process
access to a certain set of providers. SQLNCLI is a new native OLE DB provider
for SQL Server 2005 and has access. However, SQLNCLI.1 is the version-specific
provider of SQLNCLI and is not on the list of providers. Therefore, SQLNCLI.1
does not have access. Although SQLNCLI and SQLNCLI.1 are identical because
SQLNCLI points to SQLNCI.1, SQL Server 2005 does not recognize that SQLNCLI and
SQLNCLI.1 are identical. SQL Server 2005 blocks access to
SQLNCLI.1.

To resolve this issue, use one of the following methods:

Use SQLNCLI instead of SQLNCLI.1 in the OLE DB connection
string.

In SQL Server, explicitly add SQLNCL.1 to the list of
providers that have in-process access.

An assert occurs when you use the EXPORT MINING MODEL command

You may experience an assert or other failure when you use the
EXPORT MINING MODEL command against a local cube. To work around this issue,
close and then reopen the connection to the local cube before the EXPORT
statement is issued.

You cannot call replication ActiveX controls from applications that were created by using the .NET Framework 1.1 or the .NET Framework 1.0

The replication ActiveX controls are deprecated in favor of
Replication Management Objects (RMO) for programming in managed code. If you
call the ActiveX controls from managed code, you must use the .NET Framework
2.0. If you use an earlier version of the .NET Framework, an exception is
thrown.

Do not change sa account name on servers in a replication topology

In SQL Server 2005, it is possible to change the sa account to a
different name using the ALTER LOGIN command. Changing the name is not
supported on servers in a replication topology and could result in replication
failing.

During upgrade from MSDE to SQL Server Express, the msdb database is not upgraded

If you upgrade MSDE to SQL Server Express, the msdb database is
not upgraded. The following replication functionality is affected:

You cannot attach or restore a replicated database from an
MSDE instance to the upgraded SQL Server Express instance. You can attach or
restore a database to a new instance of SQL Server Express.

There are considerations for creating subscriptions on the
upgraded SQL Server Express instance:

You cannot create a subscription on the upgraded
instance using the New Subscription Wizard.

You cannot create a subscription on the upgraded
instance using Replication Management Objects (RMO) or Transact-SQL stored
procedures if the subscription is enabled for Windows Synchronization Manager.

You can create a subscription using the New Subscription
Wizard, RMO, or Transact-SQL stored procedures on a new instance of SQL Server
Express.

During upgrade from SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 7.0, the default database of SA changes to MASTER

If you upgrade from SQL Server 2000 or SQL Server 7.0 to the
release version of SQL Server 2005, the default database of SA is changed to
MASTER. This behavior occurs because the SA account is a special case account
and the SA account is cached. To work around this behavior, run the dbcc freesystemcache command or restart the SQL Server service.

Changing the default language for the sa account

The default language for the SQL Server sa account is the language that is selected during setup or an upgrade. In earlier releases of Microsoft SQL Server, running the sp_configure stored procedure to change the default language of the server also updated the default language for the sa account. To change the default language for the sa account in SQL Server 2005, you must run the sp_defaultlanguage stored procedure, run the DBCC FREESYSTEMCACHE command, and then start a new session. Running sp_configure to change the default language for the server does not update the default language for the sa account.

Side-by-side installations

Warning For SQL Server 2005 installations in side-by-side configurations, the SQL Server 2005 services must use accounts in the global domains group that are used for those services. The account should not appear directly in the local Administrators group. Failure to comply with this warning will cause unexpected security behavior between side-by-side installations and installations where only SQL Server 2005 is installed.

Error message when you attach a database in SQL Server Management Studio on a Windows Vista-based computer: "Unable to open the physical file <file name.mdf>"

On a Windows Server 2003-based computer or on a Windows XP-based computer, you detach a database from Microsoft SQL Server 2005. When you try to attach this database in SQL Server Management Studio on a Windows Vista-based computer, you receive the following error message:

This problem occurs even if the current Windows logon account is a member of the SQL Server SysAdmin role.

To resolve this problem, run SQL Server Management Studio by using the Run as administrator option, and then attach the database. After you successfully attach the database for the first time, you can perform later attach operations or detach operations in SQL Server Management Studio without using the Run as administrator option.The SQL

Server 2005 Setup program may stop at the screen "System Configuration Check"

You continue to receive the message "SQL Server Setup is scanning your computer's configuration" at the screen System Configuration Check, and do not move to the next screen. This behavior may occur when the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator service runs under an account other than the NetworkService account in Windows Server 2003 and in Windows XP. Verify that the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator service runs under the NetworkService account.
For more informationabout the Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator service, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: